Mrs. Strobe tossed her head aggressively; she had scant faith in any holiness save her own, and less patience with its assertion. And thus it was that she herself spoke now as one of the uncovenanted:— “Ef I war you-uns, I’d wisht the sperit hed better taste ’n ter lead me whar M’ria Bowles hed set up _her_ staff. Ef the sperit could do no better leadin’ ’n that fur _me_, I’d jes’ turn in an’ blaze out my own road. Yes, sir.” She turned her head suddenly, and looked at him with incongruous daring, like a reckless wren. “Needn’t tell me nuthin’ ’bout M’ria Bowles,” she continued, taking her knitting out of her pocket,—“she war always a hard, tantrum-y gal, with the kind o’ good looks ez I hed ruther be ugly than hev hed.” She twisted the yarn around her little finger to restrain its presumable impetuosity, and the needles began to twinkle as they moved. Then she proceeded, with triumphant disregard of logic:— “I tried an’ tried ter git Eli ter tell suthin’ ’bout’n her, arter he went a-visitin’ up in the mounting at Ben Bowles’s house. But ‘Yes’m’ an’ ‘Naw’m’ air all ez he hev got fur his mother nowadays, bein’ ez I can’t vote fur him. Eli air so ’feared he’ll git somebody set agin him ’fore the ’lection, by tellin’ suthin’ he said or didn’t say, he air mighty nigh mum! His tongue’ll limber out arter awhile, though, ye mark my words. Time the polls air closed he’ll know whether his soul’s his own or no.” Eli Strobe sat under this criticism with an impassiveness that could have been attained only by long practice. He gazed with somnolent, meditative eyes at the landscape, his broad-brimmed hat pulled over his brow, his elbow upon his knee, his chin in his hand. Marcella had flushed deeply. The spinning-wheel had ceased to whir. She looked up, her brown eyes alight, the broken thread in her hand. “Ye mus’ hev furgot, granny,” she said, her voice trembling with the effort at self-repression into due respect; “dad tole ye a heap ’bout the folks on the mounting.” “Till we war both tired out’n with the name o’ Bowles,” put in the uncompromising Isabel. “He tole ye Mis’ Bowles war good-lookin’ ez ever, an’ her husband ’peared well-ter-do an’ mightily tuk up with her,” itemized Marcella; “an’ he reckoned she treated her step-chill’n well,—leastwise they war fat enough; an’ she seemed—so ter say—ez happy ez she ever war,—some lonesome, mebbe, bein’ on the mounting. He tole ye, an’ he tole ye!” “Yes, he tole ye!” said Isabel, with an unfilial flirt of her tousled hair. “An’ dad _ain’t_ holdin’ his jaw fur fear o’ settin’ the voters catawampus.” There were tears in the deep brightness of Marcella’s eyes. “He _ain’t_ afeard o’ not gittin’ ’lected. _He_ kin bide by the vote ez onconsarned ez ever. It’s jes’ _me_ an’ _Is’bel_ ez hev sot our hearts on his bein’ lifted high, above _all_ the people. _Dad ain’t_ ’feard.” “Naw, _dad ain’t_ ’feard o’ nuthin’,” declared Isabel, tossing her head, in the pride of “dad’s” courage.